The End of Male Point of View

“Male point of view doesn’t sell.” This is an actual quote from the literary agent of someone I know.

Even when Charles Dickens was at the top of the bestseller lists, most readers were women. But as publishing comes to be more and more about the bottom line, Chris Goldberg reports that “… it’s gotten to the point where a lot of the more business-savvy literary agents won’t even bother to represent a young male novelist anymore.”

Stephen King responds that men do still read thrillers — incidentally, I share his opinion that Lee Child is the best contemporary writer in this genre.

Guys can’t complain really — after all, for most of literary history, it was harder for women to get published. So this isn’t a topic I plan to return to…